


A Quarterly Review

by whaleofatime



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: A 3-Step Guide To A Loving Relationship, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28813986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whaleofatime/pseuds/whaleofatime
Summary: Bruce and Jason find something to fight aboutat leastonce a season.Lucky them, they've gotten damn good at conflict resolution.
Relationships: Jason Todd/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 10
Kudos: 87





	A Quarterly Review

It’s a tense stand-off at the island in the Manor kitchen. Bruce and Jason stare fixedly at each other, both tightly grasping a mug of whiskey-tea. Outside, sleet comes down in heavy, miserable sheets, going _splat!_ against the windows and the faces of any poor Gothamite still out and about at 2 AM on a Monday morning. 

Inside, Jason is clenching his teeth so hard he can feel two fillings doing their best not to give way. “Bruce,” he says, terse and taut. “We can’t fucking talk about it if you _won’t fucking talk about it_.”

“ _You_ wanted this, I said we should just let the matter lie.” Bruce stares at him steady-eyed, but two lifetimes with a man will let you know when he’s looking you in the eyes and when he’s focusing on the bridge of your nose.

They are _not_ seeing eye to eye. “Yeah, but _you_ fucking started it!” His blood’s starting to pound and his vision’s starting to go a little green, so Jason takes a break and takes a sip. Chamomile and alcohol is a strange, unpleasant combination, but it’s been that kind of night.

Something goes _crcckk_ , and a filling breaks under pressure. Jason closes his eyes and rubs at them both with the palm of his hands. “Jesus fucking fuck. Don’t say another word, we’re going to talk this out the way we said we would talk things out. Where the hell is the list?”

Bruce is mutinously silent for the longest moment, for so long that Jason is more than tempted to just get up and get the hell out.

Before he can dramatically shove his chair back and leave, though, he hears a quiet rustle of clothing.

Jason takes a deep breath. “Read ‘em out, B.”

Bruce clears his throat. “Communication guidelines for times of strife in the relationship.” He clears his throat again. “Step 1. Identify the central issue without assigning blame.”

It’s important to start with this one, because if Jason starts throwing blame at Bruce’s head he doesn’t ever actually need to stop. His record's from a discussion-turned fight over no-kill rules two Septembers ago; an ugly list of at least 15 different ways Bruce has failed him that he came up with right on the spot, shouted out at maximum volume, and Bruce had just.... sat there, and taken it, and taken it.

Jason had felt better after getting the viciousness right out his system, but the next day he found out that Bruce had taken an assignment with the League for a two-week trip across the universe, and _that_ had almost broken them clean through.

Bruce had come back, and Jason had barricaded them both in their room for a solid 36 hours with the sole aim of coming up with a better fucking way for them to voice disagreements while reducing unkindness and abandonment.

So. A quick and easy three step process it is.

Bruce is silent while Jason ruminates, and only continues when Jason sighs and sits up.

“Sub-step 1a,” Bruce says, reading words he already knows from his phone. “Maintain physical contact.”

They share a glance, and both reach out across the counter. The tips of their fingers just barely, barely touch, and Jason has enough decency within him to not call out Bruce’s swallowed, relieved sigh.

Not to show off, but what an inspired bit of couple’s therapy this is. Jason digs his nail just slightly into a soft fingertip, and calms down. “So. The central issue is that post-fuck an hour ago you kept holding and staring at my left hand, and when I asked you what the hell you were doing, you said ‘It would be nice if I could put a ring on you.’ Then you freaked the fuck out and tried to teleport to the Watchtower, and the only reason you didn’t get to run away was because I smashed the control panel in.”

In the nude too, and he had to pick out transistors out his fist while running to find sweatpants.

“The thing that’s got me angriest is you running away.” Jason’s no stranger to the feral, unhinged quality of a lot of the things that leave the mouth post-orgasm, and intentional or not, thinking ‘I would quite like to marry my partner’ out loud isn't actually a bad thing.

Hell, even feeling embarrassed over the ordeal of being known is fair enough. The willingness to turn tail and run instead of admitting to a very human feeling, though?

Grinds Jason right down and out. A loving and committed relationship sure doesn’t feel much like either when a partner’s first response to anything unpleasant is to disappear. It’s the entire fucking point of the Guidelines, and he hates hates hates that Bruce’s snap judgement didn’t land in his favour.

(Doesn’t _ever_ fucking seem to land in his favour, to be honest.)

“I acknowledge the issues you have raised,” Bruce says calmly. His face is as stiff and unloving as ever, but Jason feels himself unfortunately, unstoppably softened up when Bruce leans into a deep stretch across the island just to have a surer hold on Jason’s hand. “I didn’t mean to be heard, and I didn’t appreciate your incredulous laughter so I chose to... retreat.”

Okay, sure, maybe startled laughter doesn’t come off super well in response to an accidental proposal, but still. 

It’s not every day you get proposed to, and because Jason lives the life he does, he had assumed the day just wouldn't come for him. That it’s a thought that struck Bruce for any reason is enough to make anybody feel hysterical, thanks. He tugs Bruce’s hand closer, has the man half laid out across the table, and digs his teeth into the knob of a wrist bone. 

He doesn’t stop till it’s red and indented.

“It wasn’t a bad type of laughter,” is all he can say.

“It wasn’t a bad type of retreat.”

They’re both quiet and still in their weird sprawl across a spotless kitchen counter, and it's quite the tableau.

Jason kisses his bite marks, then kisses his hand. “Head on to number 2, B.”

“Step 2,” Bruce says without looking at his phone, without looking at all bothered by his strange stretch and mildly mauled hand. “Both sides must issue an apology.”

“Sorry, for laughing at you. Not because you don’t deserve to be laughed at, B, but because you don’t deserve to be scared.” And what horrifying fear it had to have been, to scare off the big bad Bat of Gotham. Fuck it, Jason thinks. He climbs atop the counter while saying a psychic ‘sorry’ to Alfred, crawls across the dark granite, and swings his legs over the side with Bruce between them. “And sorry for not letting you have a moment. I forget, sometimes, how much you need those.”

Jason doesn’t remember too clearly what he was like Before, but once you wake up clawing your way out of a coffin and 6 feet of dirt, people disappearing when you don't want them to triggers hideous mortal fear like almost nothing else. Jason’s good at apologising because dying gets rid of any desire to play weird word mind games, but he knows that he’s never _quite_ managed to get across his hatred of seeing Bruce up and leave.

Same way he’s never quite managed to internalise Bruce’s fundamental need for time and space alone to, uh. Digest the human condition, or something.

Bruce sighs and rests his forehead on Jason’s knee. He doesn’t make a sound when Jason starts scratching at the greying hair by his temples, but if a man could melt, oh, the Batman would be liquid and gone.

“Go on, your turn,” Jason says faux-impatiently, jogging his knee.

“I apologise for choosing to run instead of to talk to you,” Bruce says to Jason's sweatpants. “You deserved better.” _There_ ’ _s_ the standard statement Bruce inevitably says and wholeheartedly means each time they have a fight so bad the Guidelines have to come out. “I’m also…. sorry for asking.”

“Mmhmm.” Jason bends clean in half and nips the shell of one ear. He doesn’t know what causes it, but working through a fight _always_ makes him want to bite down and not let go. “Why's that?”

“I know when a suggestion is deeply unrealistic and unwelcome,” Bruce says, eyes closed and brows pinched.

“You don’t know shit, old man.” Unrealistic, sure. Hard to marry a man who's legally dead after all. And getting a marriage certificate while maintaining a civilian cover might be even _more_ stressful than the first time Jason had to sit the rest of the family down and inform them that he’s dating their father.

Even if they do pull it off somehow, slather on enough SFX makeup to cover up both Jason’s identity and his, ah, Pit-enhanced youthfulness, there’s the very real possibility of Jason going apeshit when abuse inevitably comes pouring in for Manwhore Wayne, who's married a man so much younger.

So yes, unrealistic for Pit and security and protectiveness reasons. But unwelcome?

Bruce has sat up and opened his eyes by the time Jason thinks his tangent through, and they look at each other (again). “Third step,” Bruce prompts gravely.

“Kiss and make up.” Jason buries his hand in Bruce’s hair, tilts his head back, and kisses him with all the aggression that’s built up for a solid hour and a half. He doesn’t let Bruce move, doesn’t particularly want to let Bruce breathe, and doesn’t pull back until he’s bitten Bruce’s lip swollen and sore. 

Christ, what a looker. Jason wants to duck back in and bite until he bleeds.

“Hey Bruce,” he says, leaning down to work on a massive, masterful hickey on the side of the Batman’s neck, “ask me.”

Bruce doesn’t bother feigning ignorance, but does look a little perplexed.

“It’s dumb and logistically nightmarish and it’s not gonna happen, but the point isn’t the doing, B.” Jason reaches down and grabs at Bruce left hand, squeezes it two shades too hard. “The point's the asking and the answering. We’ve kissed, so let’s make up.”

Bruce looks at him with almost eye-watering intensity for the longest moment, but then he breaks into just the barest hint of a smile. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepen and Bruce squints a little, and it's almost unbearably sweet.

Oh, what a knock-out look on a knock-out man.

Jason can’t actually comprehend a universe in which anyone faced with this could say no to a single blessed thing that comes out the mouth of this man, but Bruce’s persistent inability to understand how strongly people feel about him keeps him humble, so it’s fine, it's fine.

He waits, and he's rewarded.

“Jason. Would you-”

It really does suck that they've been together for years and years and years but _still_ have a blow-out fight at least once a season, almost like clockwork. 

  
Three steps through, though, and it’s beyond Jason’s control to think anything but _yes_.

**Author's Note:**

> happy 2021! what a year, huh? miss rona's raging on strong, the US is in A State, and the variety of natural disasters hitting parts of Asia right now is astonishing, so i hope you're doing okay and staying both safe and kind
> 
> been stuck lately and i'm also swamped with work, so 1. please send me good vibes and 2. enjoy this sweet, dumb little thing. really been missing that Human Connection this jan, lads. please bite the hand that feeds you.
> 
> [tumblr](https://cetaceans-pls.tumblr.com)


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